


Candid Camera

by Nightdog_Barks



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Reality, Episode Related, Films, Future Fic, M/M, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-23
Updated: 2008-10-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightdog_Barks/pseuds/Nightdog_Barks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>House may have left the story behind, but that doesn't mean other people have too -- and it's all still there, in black and white.  2,655 words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candid Camera

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on some of the events of _House_ episode 4.07, "Ugly." It is AU. I've taken a few small liberties with canon, then diverged completely after the events of the Season 4 finale. There are a few more Notes at the end of the story.

_**_House_ fic: Candid Camera**_  
 **STATUS:** Posted to [](http://house-wilson.livejournal.com/profile)[**house_wilson**](http://house-wilson.livejournal.com/) on 10/23/08.  
 **TITLE:** Candid Camera  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **CHARACTERS:** House, Wilson, an OC  
 **RATING:** PG-13  
 **WARNINGS:** No.  
 **SPOILERS:** Yes, for the end of Season 4, and specifically for the season finale.  
 **SUMMARY:** House may have left the story behind, but that doesn't mean other people have too -- and it's all still there, in black and white. 2,655 words.  
 **DISCLAIMER:** Don't own 'em. Never will.  
 **AUTHOR NOTES:** This story is based on some of the events of _House_ episode 4.07, "Ugly." It is AU. I've taken a few small liberties with canon, then diverged completely after the events of the Season 4 finale. There are a few more Notes at the end of the story.  
 **BETA:** My intrepid First Readers, with especial thanks to [](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**pwcorgigirl**](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/).

 **Candid Camera**

  
"I'm Quill Leavenworth, Dr. House," I say. "Dean Fairholt told you about the appointment?" I hold out my hand, and, unsurprisingly, Dr. House doesn't take it.

"Andy Fairholt doesn't give me the time of day unless he's selling hours by the minute," he growls. "Am I supposed to know you? And if I don't, why should I care?" He tugs his baseball cap lower over his eyes and starts to turn away. I sigh, but low so the old guy can't hear me.

"Dr. House," I try again, "I'm a student of Doug Albion." He keeps moving, shuffling towards the auditorium door. Out of the corner of my eye I can see a few lingering students watching us. "The director? _Lost Bridge_? _Snake Eyes_? _Lipstick Fever_?" To my relief, Dr. House turns back.

"Was that one porn?"

"No!"

"Then I'm still not interested." Dr. House is shuffling again, making his escape at a slow but determined rate. I step in front of him. He glares at me.

"Doug Albion, Dr. House," I say loudly. "That doesn't ring a bell?"

"No. Should it?"

I shrug, exaggerated, so he can see it. This is the opening. This is what my editor, Queenie Franklin, told me -- to get Doc House interested, you have to get under his skin. Give him a puzzle. Make him mad.

"I guess not," I say, all nonchalant, and shake my head like I'm disappointed. "I know people your age tend to forget things."

Dr. House's blue eyes turn dark, _really_ dark, and for a minute I'm afraid he's going to ram that cane down my throat and break it off.

"What are you talking about?" he says, and damn if he doesn't sound twenty years younger. I take a second to blink, and use it to will my face into an innocent mask.

"Doug Albion," I say. "Professor emeritus of documentary film studies at Columbia, chaired professorship at UCLA." Dr. House grunts and looks bored. I press on.

"Winner of five Academy Awards. Recipent of the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize three years running, honored by the Toronto International Film Festival with a FIPRESCI Prize, youngest winner of the _Palm d'Or_ at Cannes." I rock back on my heels a little and deliver the _coup de grâce_.

"And in November, 2007, maker of a little _hospital_ documentary, called _The Face You Came In With_ , filmed at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, Plainsboro, New Jersey, and starring none other than one Dr. Gregory House." And _that_ gets the reaction I'm looking for. The old man's eyes narrow and he rubs at one eyebrow with the ball of his thumb.

"That was a long time ago," he says.

"It was," I allow. And that's something else Queenie said -- once you've got him hooked, keep him talking. As long as he's talking, he won't walk away. When I don't say anything else, Dr. House makes a frustrated noise, low in his throat.

"It's ancient history," he says. "Greeks and Romans. Falls of empires. The French Revolution. The good five-cent cigar. Relics. Like me."

"That's not true, Doctor. You're -- "

"A dinosaur," he interrupts. "Now cut the bullshit and tell me what you want."

I look around; more students have stopped and are staring at us, wide-eyed. I'm guessing this is the longest they've seen their prof talk to anyone after class.

"I'll tell you," I say, "but not here."

* * *

"You're a hard man to get hold of, Dr. House." I swallow the last of my apple fritter and take a quick sip of my Green Tea Latte with the extra pump of melon syrup. The doc rolls his eyes but I ignore that. Maybe the old guy doesn't like green tea. I've got him sitting at a table in the Union café and that's half the battle. "Your publisher won't give out any information, you've got an unbreakable unlisted number, nobody would even talk about you."

"For a while there I started to think you were a figment of Doug's imagination -- that he'd written a character into a script, hired an actor to play your part." I glance at him over the rim of my cup but Dr. House isn't saying anything. He's only taken a single taste of his own short black.

"I even called Darnell Walters -- do you remember Darnell, Dr. House?" I'm thinking there's no way he'd remember -- Darnell was just one of the crew, but the old guy surprises me.

"The cameraman," he says. "Followed me around like a puppy."

 _Canny bastard_ , I think. _Just like Queenie said -- you'd give your fellows the right amount of rope and they'd hang themselves every time._

"You know, that's the only documentary of Doug's that he shows in his workshops. It's a classic, sir. It ranks right up there with _Titicut Follies_ and _Sicko_." This time Dr. House doesn't just roll his eyes, he looks away to follow a young female student as she tries to balance her tray and fumble her ringing byte-phone from her jeans pocket at the same time.

"Let me guess," the doc says, not bothering to look at me while he's talking. "You were one of Doug's _special_ students, and you want to experience the whole 'where are they now?' _zeitgeist_ of the _dramatic process_."

I blink at him.

"Thought so," he grunts, and starts to lever himself slowly, carefully, out of his chair.

"I'm writing a book," I blurt out, "Doug's biography, and I'm stuck in November 2007," and the doc looks down at me.

"Nobody writes books anymore," he says.

"I do," I reply. "And I'm writing about you."

He barks out a short, sharp laugh. "Nobody wants to read about me. Hell, even _I_ don't want to read about me."

"Really?" I arch an eyebrow at him. "I heard you used to have a huge ego."

The doc's eyes narrow.

" _Who_ have you been talking to?"

"People. In New Jersey. New York. Here, in Kalispell."

"Where are you from?"

It's my turn to narrow my eyes. "Vermont. I live in Brattleboro."

"Then you've come a long way for nothing."

And he turns on his heel and it's obvious he's about to walk out and leave me here with the crumbs of my apple fritter and a cup of cold tea, so I say the only thing I can to get him to stay.

"Amber Volakis."

* * *

I look around curiously; Dr. House's office is a pretty interesting place, although a better word for it might be _cubbyhole_.

It's a typical prof's bailiwick -- PC, papers and journals everywhere, hardly an inch of the desk's actual surface visible. A lilliput player sits next to the monitor, a few gem boxes scattered around it, and I check out the titles. The Who, Xochitl, The Fiery Mudpuppies. Pretty eclectic tastes for an old guy.

There's an oversized tennis ball by the phone and I study it for a moment. Research hadn't indicated the doc had a dog.

I shrug to myself and pull my recorder out of my pocket. I'm not here about a dog.

"No," Dr. House says. He's maneuvered himself behind his desk, settled into his office chair with obvious relief and propped his right foot on the little ottoman; the baseball cap disappeared a while ago into his scuffed-up backpack.

"What?"

"No recorders," the doc says, and I make a show of accommodation as I stuff the tiny device back into my coat. I can always act like I'm reaching for a stick of gum or a tissue and switch it on.

I wait patiently while the old guy pops a pill; it's probably Paravike or one of the new oxycodone derivatives, but I can't see the label and I'm not going to ask. The doc washes it down with a gulp of water from the plastic bottle on his desk. He sets the bottle back down, picks up the tennis ball and looks at me.

"Why are you interested in Amber," he says, "if you're writing Doug's biography?"

And for a minute, I can't answer, because that's really the question, isn't it? And so I kind of hem, and haw, and think about my editor, who's watched just as many miles of tape as I have, and think about what she told me, just before I flew out here.

 _"Tell him the truth, because he'll find it out anyway."_

And so I do.

"I _am_ writing Doug's biography," I say, "but this documentary is what made him. And so in a way, I feel as if I'm writing _your_ biography, too."

Dr. House looks skeptical, and I can't blame him. I don't know if I'd believe myself, if I were listening to this.

"Five months after _The Face You Came In With_ was filmed, Dr. Amber Volakis was killed in a traffic accident. Two months after _that_ , you resigned from Princeton-Plainsboro."

"And?" The doc's not looking at me, but somehow, at the same time, he is.

"And I want to know why you left."

"Why do _you_ think I left?"

I hold back my snort at the cagey bastard trying to turn my query back on me, and answer honestly. It's something I'm out of practice at, and so I stumble a little, but recover quickly.

"You left because you were in love with Dr. Volakis. She was living with your colleague, Dr. James Wilson, and you were having an affair with her."

The silence after that stretches out for a while, and Dr. House plays with that overlarge tennis ball for a couple of minutes.

"If you think you know what happened, then why are you here?" he says.

And I can't answer, because the truth is, I _don't_ know. I've watched the film more times than I can count -- the first time I'd seen it, it had been for the grade. The second time, because Doug had been drunk -- the Oscars were coming up and he'd been nominated for Best Documentary Feature. The third time, PBS had been doing a series on medical casefiles; they'd hired me as a consultant, and it had only been then that I'd started actually _paying attention_ to the damn thing.

And since then ... I hadn't been able to let it go. Not the film, not my questions, not my desire to know what had _really_ happened.

"Because people are more complicated than that," I say, and Dr. House shakes his head.

"People aren't complicated," he says. "They _think_ they are, but they're not."

He's starting to look tired, like his guard might be slipping, and I think about clicking on the recorder in my pocket but I don't. This hasn't gone the way I expected, and I'm not sure I'm going to get a real answer out of the old guy.

"Well," I start to say, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to say next, but maybe that's a good thing because that's when it happens. The office door opens behind me, and a voice says,

"House, aren't you ready to go yet?"

And then of course there's the awkward silence as the visitor realizes Dr. House isn't alone, and he says, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize -- "

Dr. House waves a negligent hand; the tennis ball rolls free and bounces on the desk. "Come on in," he says. "Writer Kid and I have been having an _interesting_ conversation."

The new guy shoots the old doc a look of exasperation, which Dr. House ignores, and then he's stepping forward, shifting the raincoat he's holding to his left arm and offering me his right hand.

"Hello," he says. "I'm James Wilson." He smiles apologetically. "I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

I shake his hand while my mouth goes on autopilot -- Quill Leavenworth, writing a book, the kid who'd gotten a new face. At the same time, I'm cursing myself for not checking out the _complete_ faculty list.

Dr. Wilson doesn't look as old as Dr. House, obviously; his hair is still mostly brown and I wonder for just a second if he's coloring it. His eyes are warm and he's nodding and smiling, so I guess I'm making sense, and when I finally run out of automated spiel, he looks impressed.

"Wow," he says, and grins at Dr. House. "Think they'll put your picture on the cover of the _Rolling Stone_?"

I have no idea what he's talking about, but Dr. House rolls his eyes and starts to get up. Before he makes it even halfway, though, he stifles a groan and sinks back into his chair. Dr. Wilson's behind the desk in a flash.

"House, are you okay?" He rests one hand on the doc's shoulder, fingers squeezing lightly. "I _told_ you to take an extra Cobapentin this morning -- you know how your leg gets when the weather's bad."

"I must've forgotten," Dr. House says, and he's gripping his leg like he's got a cramp, but he's looking straight at me and those old eyes aren't showing any pain at all.

"As if that's likely." Dr. Wilson snorts softly and moves his hand to the back of Dr. House's neck. The old man leans into it, relaxing like a cat stretching in a ray of sunlight. "You don't like it because you think it makes my cooking taste funny."

"Your cooking _always_ tastes funny," Dr. House rejoins, but it's obvious from their tones this is a very old joke between them. "Speaking of food, what's for dinner tonight?"

It's like they've forgotten I'm there, and sitting here listening to them is like listening to my --

"One of your favorites," Dr. Wilson says. "Duck confit -- Seth Windham's son got one more than he needed last weekend, says he'll try and bag us a pheasant for Christmas."

I stare -- first at Dr. House, then at the hand on his neck, then back at him. One corner of Dr. House's mouth twists up in what might be a grimace or the faintest hint of a question.

 _"He'll tell you the truth, every time," Queenie had said. "He told me I'd make a better writer than I would a doctor, right before he fired me." She'd laughed. "I was number 24. It was my age at the time, and I'd thought it was a good omen. And who knows? Maybe it was."_

My mouth is open, and I close it with a snap. Dr. House didn't leave Princeton because he was in love with Dr. Volakis.

He left because he was in love with Dr. Wilson.

"Get what you came for?" Dr. House asks.

"I ... yes," I say. "Yes, I think I did." I paste a look of sincere regret on my face. "I'm afraid it's not quite what I was looking for for the book, though."

Dr. Wilson looks puzzled, but all Dr. House says is, "Isn't that a shame," in a tone implying it's anything but. He stands up now, rising smoothly to his feet.

"There's an hour of my life I'll never get back," he mutters as Dr. Wilson hefts the backpack and slings it across his own shoulder.

And that's it, as we all shuffle out the door, into the corridor where students are still coming and going at the end of the day. Dr. Wilson shakes my hand again as Dr. House bounces his cane impatiently on the floor, and the last I see of them are their backs as they walk down the hall, their gaits matching precisely like they've been doing this for years.

Which, of course, they have.

I turn away, pull my byte-phone from my jacket pocket and punch a few buttons. Queenie answers on the first ring.

"Hey," I say. "Yeah, I'm coming back early." I nod at her reply. "Nope, he wouldn't see me, but it's okay."

"There's no story here at all."

~ fin

  
 _  
**Notes:**   
_

The LJ-cut text is from the song "Peg," by Steely Dan. Complete lyrics may be found [here](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/steely+dan/peg_20130083.html).

 _Titicut Follies_ and _Sicko_ are real films; more information may be found on them [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies) and [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicko).

The joke that Wilson makes (and which sails right over Quill Leavenworth's head) is from a song by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, [The Cover of the Rolling Stone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cover_of_the_Rolling_Stone).


End file.
